Grantourismo - 12 months, 24 destinations, countless experiences

Finishing writing projects (books, stories, reviews) and planning our exciting new project called Grantourismo, a contemporary grand tour of sorts, has kept us busy throughout December and January, and once again prevented me from updating this poor neglected little blog. Early this week we left Australia, where we went to spend Christmas and New Year with family and work at my uncle and aunt's beautiful house in Bendigo, for the UAE, our home since 1998, and the base for the intensive globetrotting we've been doing these last 12 years. Today we kick off Grantourismo with a little pre-launch party at a swish villa on The Palm in Dubai, on Monday we fly to London for the official launch of the project, and a week later we head to Marrakech to properly start the project. So what is this project then, you ask? Well, essentially, we're trading hotel rooms for holiday homes for a year (phew!) and partnering with HomeAway Holiday Rentals, who are sending us around the world to stay in their properties and write about the homes, the destinations, and the experiences they enable us to have. The aim is to inspire people to choose holiday homes over hotels when they're planning a trip, because we believe homes enable people to travel in a more enriching and authentic way. You can read more about the project on our pretty Grantourismo blog (which Terry designed) and here on the HomeAway site. And I'll tell you more about how the project came about and what it involves in another post. Because I have a party to prepare for now...

The Dubai Melting Pot is in the Kitchen Too

Technicalities aside (see my previous post on Dubai as 'salad bowl' rather than 'melting pot') I was pleased to read The Dubai Melting Pot Is In the Kitchen Too in the New York Times. After an abundance of Dubai-bashing in the media recently, it was a relief to see a story by a writer who actually enjoyed himself in Dubai, and to read a well-researched piece of travel and food writing that gave such a scrumptious insight into the place. However, often it's the focused, one-subject stories that are more revealing than the all-encompassing pieces that try to do everything and don't end up covering anything particularly well at all. While cuisine, cooking and a culture's eating habits tell a lot about a place, in this case what's heartening is the fact that the story was centered, that it stayed on topic, that it rang true, and that it dug a little (although perhaps not as deep as it could have), rather than staggered all about the place, scratching here and there at the surface, and scraping together nothing but castles in the sand. During his three-day "odyssey across the culinary landscape of Dubai" writer Seth Sherwood samples an array of restaurants featuring cuisine from North Africa to the Sub-Continent, crediting Dubai’s cosmopolitan population for this culinary diversity, and writing "For devotees of food from the Arabian-Islamic world, Dubai may offer the grandest and most concentrated smorgasbord on the planet." Okay, so they're not really 'Arabian' (he probably means Arabic), but we'll forgive him because at least he was there. You see, I still can't get over Brisbane writer Elizabeth Farrelly's nonsensical piece in which she admitted that she had never been there but strangely for six months had "wanted to write about Dubai as a ruin". In stark contrast Sherwood's piece is grounded in reality: "Though the international economic crisis has raged like a sandstorm through Dubai’s office towers, financial markets and construction sites, a January visit found the sprawling restaurant scene remarkably intact." He concludes: "The upshot is a citywide food bazaar in which restaurants, high- and low-end, serve up tapaslike mezes, aubergine par excellence, fluffy couscous, tangy yogurts, endless kebabs, meats stewed with fruit, fiery arrak liqueur and honey-drenched desserts. All you need is taxi fare and a love of spices." I couldn't agree more. Although I don't always agree with his choices. Sherwood covers everything from the chic Moroccan restaurant Almaz by Momo (pictured) to the gritty Pakistani worker's eatery, Ravi, an expat favorite. The challenge of doing a story like this is that the writer only has three days to eat his way around the city and has to rely on his research abilities as much as his skills at discernment whereas we have had 11 years of dining in Dubai, with plenty of time for repeat visits. Another reason I love guidebook writer - 6 weeks in a city allows you plenty of time to return to places, to wander by on different nights, and to talk to locals. But once again - at least he was there.

Dubai - more of a 'salad bowl' than a 'melting pot'

Dubai is a big delicious bowl of salad. And a fusion salad at that. Don't you think? While the term 'melting pot' gets used a lot, it's not a 'melting pot' in the strict sense of the concept, in that there hasn't been an assimilation or intermarriage of ethnicities to the extent that the original cultures have been lost and the culture as a whole has become homogeneous. Far from it. Indeed, that's not really a desirable thing anymore anyway, is it? For me, Dubai is more of a 'salad bowl' of cultures, where individuals, families and ethnic groups are all enticingly mixed together but they each retain their own unique identities, and the rich traditions and wonderful customs that make them special. Indeed, Dubai, or rather, the United Arab Emirates, is one of the most multicultural places I know, where alongside the Emiratis, the Iranians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Russians, French, British, and so on are all able to maintain their own cultures, eat at their own restaurants, shop for the same groceries they might buy back home, worship in their mosques, temples and churches, shop for their own music etc - and those of us who relish the opportunity to consume other cultures are able to thrive by living in such a cosmopolitan society that is as rich as the best of them (Canada? Australia?) in terms of its cultural diversity.

Pictured? Foreign visitors (from the UK, Europe, Australia and North America) waiting to try home-cooked Emirati food at the Cultural Breakfast at the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding in Bastakiya, Dubai. This is one the first things I recommend people do when they visit Dubai - it gives them a great insight into the local culture, religion and people, and goes a long way to breaking down stereotypes and misconceptions.

The world's most jawdropping drives, pt 2

Here's the second part of my pick of the world's most jawdropping drives from roads we've travelled in the last few years (read part 1 here). I've categorized these great drives by region and country, as some destinations are gifted with so many dramatically beautiful routes:
6. MOROCCO: one of our favorite road trips starts from Marrakesh, heading east to Essaouira, then south via the surfing spots dotting the coast down to Agadir, before turning inland toward the walled city Taroudant, and on to other-worldly Ouarzazate, Zagora and the tiny hamlet Mhmed, the last stop before the Sahara, returning to Marrakesh via the Atlas Mountains. The trip took us through moonlike landscapes, sublime desert scenery, abandoned mountain palaces, Berber desert citadels, and date palm oases. Magical!
7. THAILAND: we once drove from Koh Samui (via a car ferry) across the south of Thailand to Phuket. This route takes you through lush green tropical landscapes boasting striking limestone mountains and impenetrable jungle. On the way are tiny towns with bustling markets and diversions such as elephant trekking and whitewater rafting, but the drive itself with the stunning scenery was enough to keep us satisfied.
8. BULGARIA: the roads may be in a poor state, pot-holed and breaking away in parts, and the Cyrillic signs mean you need to continually refer to your dictionary, yet other than that driving in Bulgaria is a road trippers' dream, with idyllic rural landscapes with lush green meadows carpeted with wildflowers, where ramshackle villages tumble down mountainsides, and striking war monuments appear in the most surprising places. You'll have to frequently stop for cows and families will pass you on wooden horses and carts, but that's part of the fun of it.
9. MUSANDAM, OMAN: from the UAE border to Khasab, the sleepy capital of the Musandam Peninsula of Oman, a road skirts the magnificent coast, taking you by majestic forts, mosques with pretty minarets, date palm oases, hills topped with watchtowers, and small coves where fisherman haul in nets. The whole way you have on one side sheer rocky mountains and on the other the turquoise sea. (For more info, see my story 'Dhows, dolphins and smugglers' published in the January issue of Get Lost magazine here)
10. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE): there's a drive in the Liwa region through the sandy desert near the border with Saudi Arabia that snakes through massive peach- and apricot-coloured sand dunes. There's very little vegetation, just an occasional small shrub, and the dunes are dotted with long-lashed camels. This is real Lawrence of Arabia stuff! As the sand is continually shifting it dramatically 'bleeds' across the road from time to time. (Read more in my story 'Dubai's Desert Escapes' published in Lifestyle+Travel magazine, available here.)